This lesson plan follows a human snake around a mystery city (could it be Lisbon?). The advert is for Sony PSP and was filmed using pixilation (a stop motion technique using people). The accompanying music is by Covox (http://www.myspace.com/covoxmusic)

Lesson plan outline

Tell students that they are going to see a clip in which a man’s breakfast speaks to him. Ask them to guess what it says.

Tell students to watch carefully as you are going to test their powers of observation. Play the clip in full.

Put students into pairs and give out a set of cut up sentences to each pair (included in the PDF download). Alternatively, give out pairs of scissors and ask students to cut up the sentences for themselves.

Ask students to put the sentences into the correct order from memory.

Play the clip again and let students check their answer / make changes.

Do a feedback and drill pronunciation of the sentences. Answers:

* A man’s breakfast tells him to go.
* He stands up and leaves his flat.
* He goes past the postman.
* The postman drops his letters and joins him.
* They go through some bushes.
* They go over a swimming pool.
* They go past a bus stop and the people waiting join them.
* They go through an office and the people in the office join them.
* They go into one phone box and out of another.
* They go around a corner and through a narrow lane.
* They go around a robot made of cardboard boxes.
* The man gets back to his flat. He walks through the glass and goes inside.
* He sits down.

Ask students to return the sentences to you if you intend to recylcle them.

Give out copies of Worksheet 2 (included in the PDF download). This is a gap fill in which students are required to recall and write the prepositions which are now missing from the above sentences.

Let students compare answers.

Go over the answers again and drill the language again.

Ask students if they can tell you where the advert was filmed (could it be Lisbon?)

Thanks Yunus
A trainee of mine once made some really cool flash cards for this lesson plan. I’ll have to get round to scanning and uploading them soon.
How about a follow up that moves away from the clip – something that involves students planning a walk around their own town that requires the use of *all* of the prepositions of movement. Depends on where you live I suppose!

In Turkey, where I am living and teaching and where public schools are relatively more crowded, such an activity could turn into a nightmare. Instead, one student closes his/her eye and the rest of the classroom describes what is happening in another video and that student tries to act the scene according to classroom’s descriptions.

Yunus – I’m not sure Jamie specifically had you in mind whilst coming up with these lesson plans..

Jamie – I think your website is brilliant!! I’m an English language assistant in France this year (a requirement of my degree program – I guess you did something similar?) Many of these exercises are very, very creative! Do you spend a lot of time planning your lessons, or have you been doing it for long enough now that it has become easier/quicker?
Also, where do you find/ come up with the idea to look for these videos?

Hello James
Thank you very much for your nice comment. The answer to your question is that I do spend quite a lot of time watching clips and thinking what to do with them (maybe too much time!?) A couple of places to look for clips:
* Viral video chart: http://viralvideochart.unrulymedia.com/
* Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda+series/viralvideochart
Also, make sure that you subscribe to channels you like. And also make sure that you bookmark good clips that you find – you never know when you might go back to them.
Thanks again. I appreciate the support.
Jamie :-)

Hi Jamie,
since I ‘discovered’ your website, whenever I’m short of ideas or short of time, I come back to it and pick some of your lessons which are always fun and useful. I think you’re doing a great job. Thank you ever so much. I’ll be back :)

Thanks Mina. Sorry for the late reply.
I don’t really have any offhand but there must be loads of possibilities. I remember my trainer once using a car chase scene from the film The Italian Job for the same purpose.
Why not make a film of your own or get students to do so. They could film their route to school and then describe it.
Jamie :)